Not the person you're responding to, but I had a similar experience. There were basically a few stages: 1. The Eternal September, and it was dark and cold. 2

Not the person you're responding to, but I had a similar experience. There were basically a few stages: 1. The Eternal September, and it was dark and cold. 2. The rise of the spam bots, and it became filthy. 3. The weight of the binaries, and ISPs began to shy away. 4. The popularity of PHPBB, and The Eternal September began to wane. 5. The binaries grew heavier, the spam more pervasive, and more and more human peers found their access dropped by their ISPs. NNTP was glorious while it lasted, but it died by its popularity.